Chapter Four

Jay

For the second time in far too small of a window, Jay found himself holding Hailey in his arms, nearly unconscious.

Except this time, she was seizing.

She slipped into the seizure slowly. Her arm started trembling first, then he watched as her mouth opened and closed as though she were talking but unable to speak.

"Hailey?" Jay stood swiftly from his chair and put his hands on Hailey's shoulders. He tried to keep the panic out of his voice and keep his hands from shaking; he failed miserably at both. "Hails, you alright?"

She wasn't alright, and Jay knew it. Her eyes glazed over — much like they had when he'd found her in their living room — and rolled partially back in her head.

It went downhill from there, and fast.

Jay's heart lurched into his throat as his wife's body went stiff and the full-body shaking started. He pressed her call button as quickly as he could with his shaky fingers before putting a hand on Hailey's forehead. He stroked his thumb along the soft skin there, avoiding the laceration from the attack. "Hails, I'm right here. I'm here. Help is coming."

Frankly, he wasn't sure if she could hear him, but he had to say the words just in case. Within two minutes, doctors — his brother included — and nurses flooded the room and Jay was forced to step aside to the far wall of Hailey's room.

"I need five milligrams of Ativan, slow push," Will instructed, looking back at Jay sympathetically. The terror he felt must have been written all over his face.

Seven minutes. Hailey's seizure lasted seven minutes, but they felt like seven hours to Jay. He knew seizure first aid and that someone who is seizing should never be held or held down, but not being able to hold Hailey during it gutted him. Perhaps she wasn't even conscious of what was going on, but it still killed him to not be able to hold her just in case she was.

Hailey may have been furious at him, but he knew that she would accept his comfort, as she had so far.

When Hailey was finally no longer seizing and was stabilized — albeit knocked out from the IV meds — the nurses left, followed by Dr. Marcel, who patted Jay's shoulder and looked at him with sincere sympathy, just as Will had.

Will hung back and walked Jay over to the recliner he'd slept in less than 24 hours before. "That was what we call a PNES — a psychogenic nonepileptic seizure," Will explained, standing next to Hailey's bed with his hands on his hips. "Essentially, it's a seizure that mimics one that someone with epilepsy might have, but it's nonepileptic and is actually caused by… psychological factors."

Psychological factors.

The way his brother hesitated on those last two words sent Jay's brain into overdrive. "Psychological factors? I thought you said the head injury could cause seizures."

Will nodded. "It could have. Even mild TBIs are associated with this type of seizure, but I just want to put out there that they can also be caused by things like anxiety, stress, unwanted memories… Even a history of abuse, which I'm pretty sure you've mentioned with Hailey."

"Yeah. Her dad was abusive. Beat the hell out of her and her brothers, and her mom." Jay leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, putting his head in his hands for a moment. "So you're saying that yes, the injury to her head could have caused it, but… You seem like you think it's more likely that it was something else."

"I do."

He didn't have to ask Will what he meant. He raked a hand through his hair roughly and tried to swallow the thick lump in his throat. "Fuck. So basically, I did this to her? The stress or anxiety or all of it caused her to start having seizures?"

Jay was about to continue until Will put a hand up, effectively stopping him. "Jay, no. I said it could have been caused by psychological factors. There's no way to be sure. When we scanned her abdomen earlier, I got another image of her head. The TBI isn't as severe as I thought." He moved to lean against the wall next to the recliner and put his hand on Jay's shoulder. "This," he started, waving his hand in Hailey's general direction, "is not your fault."

Jay scoffed, then stood to walk to Hailey's bedside. "The hell it isn't. I caused her enough anxiety and stress for a lifetime when I left. And the unwanted memories part…" He reached down to stroke wisps of blonde hair back from Hailey's face. "She has a lot of those — from her childhood, from what happened with this guy named Booth, who nearly raped her while she was undercover, from some of the scenes we've been at and cases we've worked… and now from me."

Jay heard Will sigh deeply but didn't take his eyes off Hailey's sleeping form. "Jay, you left because you thought that was the best thing to do, for you and for Hailey." His words were stern but held no anger or judgment. "You thought she'd be better off if you left because you wanted to be better and do things differently when you came back."

Jay couldn't deny that his brother was right. He hadn't liked who he was becoming, and he knew Hailey deserved either a better version of him or to not have to be with him at all.

If he'd had even the tiniest of inklings that Hailey would end up here, now, like this, he wouldn't have entertained the idea of going to Bolivia for half a second. He would have stayed in Chicago and figured out another way to become who he used to be or even better, because that's what Hailey deserved.

But Hailey had ended up with the opposite of what she deserved; she ended up here.

Jay walked around Hailey's bed and sat back down in the plastic chair beside her. He reached over the rail of her bed and took her hand in both of his, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the back of it. He could feel Will's eyes on him, and he still couldn't take his off Hailey.

"Yeah. I did think that," Jay agreed. "I did, but how the hell could I not think about how Hailey would feel when I asked for an extension without talking to her? How did I not consider how she would handle all of this?" His tone was bordering on hysterical now, and he didn't even try to stop the tears that were stinging his eyes from rolling down his cheeks.

"Probably because you thought she wouldn't miss the man you'd become, Jay."

It was one sentence, but it flipped a switch in Jay's brain.

Maybe he had thought about how Hailey would feel; he just had been wrong in his assumption that she would be relieved to be rid of the version of himself that he was when he left.

Before Jay could say anything else (not that he knew what to say), Hailey's hand twitched in his, and his head shot up to look at her. Her eyelids were fluttering as she let out a quiet groan.

"Hailey?" he said softly, leaning forward and squeezing her hand gently in his. He could barely find it in him to fight the urge to take her into his arms. "Hails, I'm here. Will is here. Can you open your eyes for me?"

It took about half a minute, but eventually, Hailey's eyes opened and landed immediately on Jay. To his surprise, they were clear and more focused than they had been since he'd found her on the floor of their home, and the stunning blue he'd always been so mesmerized by stood out. He'd be lying if he said it didn't take his breath away.

"Ugh," Hailey groaned, putting the hand that wasn't in Jay's to her head and wincing. "Fuck. What happened?"

Jay stroked the base of her thumb and looked over at Will. "You're okay. You had a seizure but Will stopped it." Jay kept his voice quiet as Hailey rubbed her temple; that was always how Jay could tell when she had a headache, and he'd be surprised if her head wasn't throbbing like hell now.

"A seizure?" Hailey's brows knitted together in confusion.

Will stepped forward and stood on the opposite side of Hailey's bed, his eyes scanning the monitors above her head. "Hailey, you had something called a psychogenic nonepileptic seizure," he explained as Hailey squeezed her eyes shut. "They're usually caused by anxiety, stress, unwanted memories… Even a history of abuse can trigger them. Your head injury could have caused it, too, but after looking at the new image of your head, I think that's unlikely."

Hailey opened one eye and looked from Will to Jay and back again. "Well… I guess I meet the criteria for that, then," she mumbled, fingers massaging her temple still. "What do you mean, 'the new image'?"

"When we scanned your abdomen, we did the re-scan of your head, remember? That scan showed that your TBI isn't as severe as we thought, and I'm almost positive it isn't severe enough to cause not one, but two psychogenic seizures." Will put his hand to his forehead, running his fingers back and forth as he shook his head. "Remember when you were in fo-"

Jay's head snapped up as his brother stopped himself short and pressed his mouth into a thin line, his face bearing an oh, shit expression.

"In for what, Will?" Jay looked from Will to Hailey, eyebrows raised, clearly looking for an explanation.

Hailey looked like a deer in the headlights. "Don't freak out, please."

Jay's stomach dropped at her words and the look on Will's face. "Hailey, if you start literally any sentence or story with those words, chances are I'm going to freak out," he told her, putting his hand on her thigh. He tried his best to keep his voice gentle. "One of you tell me what happened, please."

Hailey bit the inside of her cheek for a few seconds, and Jay saw her exchange a look with Will. He squeezed her thigh, telling her without words that he wanted her to tell him, not Will.

And she did, but not without nerves causing her voice to shake. "One day at work, I started feeling like absolute shit; like to the point I actually agreed to go home when someone recommended it." She chuckled awkwardly; she was as stubborn as they come, and she knew it. "Anyway, I came down with a 102-degree fever, had a horrible headache and body aches… the works. I had gone home from work on Friday, and on Monday I didn't show up at the district. Kim came to check on me and found me in bed, completely out of it." She shrugged as if it weren't a big deal, but to Jay it couldn't have been a bigger deal.

102-degree fever. Headache. Body aches. Didn't show up to work. Completely out of it.

That was all Jay heard, and it was enough.

He had a feeling he knew where Hailey and Will were headed with this, and he felt nauseous.

Hailey looked at Will when Jay didn't say anything and Will took the hint, clearing his throat and placing his hands on his hips. It was obvious he was trying to shift into doctor mode from worried brother-in-law; he didn't fool Jay for a second.

"Yeah, uh… Kim brought her in. She was barely conscious and was delirious. By the time she came in, her fever was just under 104, which is when it becomes extremely dangerous in adults." He looked at Hailey as if looking for permission to continue, and she gave it with a weak nod. "We tested her for COVID, the flu… everything you can think of. Hell, we almost tested her for meningitis, even, but that requires a spinal tap."

"Jesus Christ," Jay mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. He felt Hailey's eyes on him, and when he looked up at her, they were wide. She looked scared, and he realized then that his hand had moved to the side of her bed and was gripping it so hard his knuckles were white. He let go and moved his hand back to her thigh, rubbing up and down. "I'm sorry, babe. I'm sorry." He looked up at Will and waved his hand. "Continue, please."

Will shot Jay an annoyed look at his tone but continued anyway. "We determined it was a psychogenic fever — a stress-related illness. There was absolutely no other cause we could determine, and I don't have to tell you that she had plenty of stress." This time, Will's expression, nor his words, were sympathetic. "We got her fever down eventually and kept her overnight to make sure it stayed down; it went back up briefly but then went down and stayed down."

Jay turned and locked eyes with Hailey. Her blue eyes were studying his face closely, like she was trying to gauge his reaction. "I was fine two days after they released me," she told him, as if that would make him any less concerned or horrified.

Or make him feel any less guilty.

Jay's hand continued its course up and down Hailey's thigh, as if trying to comfort himself and reassure her that he wasn't angry or upset with her at the same time. She was still staring at him, and he gave her the best smile he could manage, which probably looked like a grimace.

"Will, can I talk to you outside for a minute? Please?" He tried to keep his concern and the irritation at Will that he was feeling out of his voice for Hailey's sake. He was pretty sure he failed miserably. When Will gave a slight nod, Jay looked at Hailey and squeezed her knee. "I'll be right back, Hails. It's okay."

But it wasn't. It wasn't okay, and he intended to let Will know that.

…

Hailey

Just like when he had returned from their apartment earlier, something was different with Jay when he came back after speaking with Will. He didn't seem angry, but he did seem upset. Whether or not it was with her specifically, she wasn't sure.

He took his spot beside her bed and Hailey was relieved when he put his hand back on her leg. "You okay?" he asked her, his voice as gentle as ever.

Hailey shrugged. "That depends. Are you mad at me?"

Jay's answer was immediate. "No. No, Hailey, I'm not," he said with a shake of his head. "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at Will, but not you. I told him before I left that if you ever showed up at or ended up in the hospital that he needed to call me; he promised me he would."

"Jay, he-"

"No, Hailey," he cut her off. His voice wasn't angry, but it was stern and left no room for argument or protest. "No. A fever that high can cause brain damage. Brain damage. I should have been called, period. Will and the people from Intelligence were my only way of making sure you were okay for eight months."

Her next words come out before she can think about or stop them. "Yeah, well, that goes both ways, Jay."

"I know."

"Do you?" she asked, her tone far more sharp and harsh than she intended. "You have no fucking idea how many days and nights you didn't answer that had me at work or laying in bed, wondering whether you were dead or alive with absolutely no way of knowing for sure." With each word, she felt herself get more and more worked up, and her breathing quickened.

Jay picked up on it immediately and leaned forward to put a hand on her cheek. "Okay, Hails. It's alright," he said softly, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. Something about his comforting tone and his thumb stroking her skin so gently brought tears to Hailey's eyes. "I know I've said this a lot since I've been back, but I'm so goddamn sorry."

The tears fell then. She felt a combination of guilt for her harsh words and tone, and sadness that his apology didn't make her feel any less bitter. "You have a right to be angry with Will or whoever else for not calling you, but I have a right to be angry with you for keeping me in the dark."

"Yeah, Hails, you do. You absolutely do." Jay swiped a tear off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "I promise you, though, that nothing you say to me will ever make me feel worse or make me hate myself more than I do right now."

The last sentence made Hailey feel like she'd just been kicked in the chest. No matter how angry she was at Jay or how hurt she was when he left, she had never hated him, and she sure as hell never wanted him to hate himself.

"I don't want you to hate yourself, Jay." Her voice was soft as she reached up and put her hand over Jay's that was resting on her thigh. "Please don't." She knew from experience that one couldn't just stop a feeling as strong as self-hatred, but she begged him anyway; the thought of him hating himself as much as she had hated herself lately broke her heart.

"Hailey," Jay breathed, incredulity lacing his tone. Hailey couldn't help but think it was like he couldn't believe she didn't hate his guts. Like she ever could. "I left you, and you got so stressed out and depressed that you wound up in the hospital, for fuck's sake. You could have died."

"Yeah, I could have, but-"

"But what, Hailey? But what? You could have died, period." His voice was raised a bit more than she was used to, but he still wasn't yelling. His voice was hoarse with emotion, and Hailey found herself fighting back tears at the sound of it. "I will never be able to forgive myself for that, amongst a thousand other things."

Hailey quickly wiped away a tear that escaped her left eye. "Yeah, well… I'm angry at you for leaving, but I refuse to blame you for how I dealt with it, Jay. I refuse." Before she could even think about what she was doing, she reached up and put her right hand on the side of Jay's face, exactly as he had just done. "Right now, we just need to take things one day at a time. We can scream and yell at each other if we need to, or laugh, or cry, or all of the above."

"Hails, I-"

Now it was her turn to cut him off. She ran her hand down from his cheek to his jaw and stroked his jawbone with her thumb. "Nope. We cannot work through eight months without each other tonight or tomorrow or even next week. It's going to take time for us to stop blaming ourselves, and to figure out how to get back what we lost."

The apple of Jay's throat bobbed as he visibly tried to fight back the tears that Hailey could see in his eyes. "So you think we can?" he asked hoarsely. His tone carried something she was pretty sure neither of them had felt for a while: hope.

"Can what?"

"Get back what we lost — do you think we can?" A tear finally escaped one of Jay's green-blue orbs and Hailey caught it with her thumb, wiping her own tears with her other hand.

She was quiet for a moment; not because she was hesitant or unsure of her answer, but because she wanted to word it exactly right. "I do, Jay. I really, really do. Will it take time and patience and compromise? Of course; we aren't naïve enough to think it won't. But you know what?"

"What's that?"

"You asking me that tells me you're still willing to fight for us and that I still mean enough to you that you want to."

The way Jay looked at her then damn near knocked the breath out of her. She'd never been looked at with that much love in her entire life.

But then again, she was sure no one had ever loved her as much as Jay.

Jay took Hailey's hand that was resting on his neck and held it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her palm and the back of her hand. "Of course you still mean enough to me, Hailey; way more than enough. I know I have a shit way of showing it lately, but you mean everything to me, and I'll do anything and everything I need to do to help us get us back." He cradled her hand against his warm cheek, and the warmth felt good against her skin.

"That's all I'm asking," Hailey told him, giving him the biggest smile she could muster, which was probably a pretty pathetic one. "I know that's asking a lot, but…"

Jay shook his head. "Not really, Hailey; not after what I did to you."

Hailey stroked his cheek again and her fingers found the back of his neck, playing with the short hair there. She saw his eyes close for a minute and she couldn't help but smile, remembering all the times she'd done that very thing while laying in bed with him, or cuddling with him on the couch after dinner.

Without even thinking about it, she ran her nails lightly across the back of his neck, and she didn't miss for one second the shiver that ran through him. Before she could say anything or move her hand (as if she really wanted to move it), Jay sheepishly mumbled, "Sorry."

"For what?"

Jay shook his head as Hailey dropped her hand to rest on his shoulder. "It's just been a long time since you've done that."

"It's been a long time since we've done a lot of things."

The second the words were out of her mouth, Hailey blushed, and pink bloomed on Jay's cheeks, too. "Believe me…I know."

Something about Jay's response shot heat right to Hailey's core. "I've missed you in more ways than one, you know."

Fuck.

Hailey wondered briefly if it was the pain meds making her bold, until it hit her that the anger that had gripped her body for eight months was loosening its hold and was being replaced by sexual tension and overpowered by her love for and attraction to him, even if the shift was temporary.

Honestly, she didn't know how she expected Jay to respond. Maybe a me, too, or an inappropriate joke. Perhaps an awkward silence or maybe an attempt to change the subject (she wouldn't blame him).

What Hailey certainly did expect was for Jay to stand from his chair, gently take her face in his hands, and press his lips hard against hers.